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For a man who says he likes it rough, Jian Ghomeshi has taken a serious hit.

Despite much hoopla and bombast when he announced it on Facebook last month, former CBC broadcaster Ghomeshi has not only withdrawn his $55-million lawsuit against the employers who fired him last month, but will also pay them $18,000 in legal costs.

“Both parties have come to an agreement and signed all the necessary paperwork,” confirmed CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson. “It still needs to be formalized by way of a court order.”

Ghomeshi will continue to grieve his dismissal through his union, the Canadian Media Guild, Thompson added.

So much for that impassioned plea in the wake of his firing last month, where the 47-year-old former radio host of Q vowed to take his bosses to court for severing their ties with him because of his “private” BDSM lifestyle.

“I’ve been fired from the CBC because of the risk of my private sex life being made public as a result of a campaign of false allegations,” Ghomeshi wrote on a Facebook post he has since deleted. “No employer, should have dominion over what people do consensually in their private life.”

His very polished public plea for understanding and justice soon backfired when nine women came forward to allege Ghomeshi assaulted them against their will. When three complainants went to Toronto Police with their accusations, the sex crimes unit launched a criminal investigation and Ghomeshi hired prominent criminal defence attorney Marie Henein.

“It was inevitable. It was either drop it now and pay only $18,000 in legal costs or drop it later and have to pay $150,000 in court costs,” Levitt said in an interview. “This never had any prospect of success.”

The reason is simple, he explained. As a union member, Ghomeshi’s only recourse against his former employer is through his guild — and not the courts.

But this was never about winning a lawsuit that his legal team must have known was a non-starter from the get-go.

Instead, Levitt believes the suit was all about “spin and PR” and it was very cynically launched to accomplish a number of tasks: First, it allowed Ghomeshi to get his message out in a privileged statement of claim where he could say anything without being sued for libel.

It was also designed to intimidate potential accusers — dare to make those accusations about him and he’d send his team of lawyers after you. And lastly, it painted him as the aggrieved party who was so staunchly certain of his innocence that he was going to court to prove it.

The crusade for justice and rustle of legal papers worked for a short time — until those women began to come forward with strikingly similar stories of being choked or punched without their consent. And when two of the women allowed their names to be used, any remnants of sympathy for Ghomeshi ebbed away.

His chances in civil court were doomed from the start, but there was a slim chance the CBC might have thrown money his way to make him keep quiet and move on. But with the avalanche of allegations against him, he wasn’t holding the cards anymore.

Now Ghomeshi has admitted inevitable defeat in his lawsuit — and his loss is our gain: As taxpayers, we won’t be shelling out $55 million after all.

Not only is he $18,000 in the hole to cover the broadcaster’s legal costs — not to mention his own — this may embolden others to now come forward. There’s also no guarantee his union will take his case to binding arbitration and he’s still looking at possible criminal charges.

The blows may just keep coming. “This is strike one,” predicts Levitt. “There’ll be more.”